Cyncly Payments supports surcharge for eligible RFMS clients. Surcharge adds a fee to certain card-not-present credit card payments to help your business offset credit card processing costs.
Not every business or payment qualifies for surcharge. Cyncly Payments must review and enable surcharge for your account before you can use it.
To get started, see Request Surcharge Enablement for Cyncly Payments.
What Is a Surcharge?
A surcharge is a fee added to an eligible credit card payment. When a surcharge applies, the customer pays the payment amount plus the surcharge.
Cyncly Payments determines whether the payment is eligible and calculates the surcharge amount. Your business does not choose or enter the surcharge during the payment process.
Surcharge helps offset some eligible credit card processing costs. It is not additional income for your business and does not eliminate all card processing fees. Your business is still responsible for fees from payments that cannot be surcharged and other payment services.
Can Your Business Use Surcharge
To use surcharge, your business must:
- Use RFMS version 26.1 or later
- Process payments through Cyncly Payments
- Have a registered business location where Cyncly Payments supports surcharge
- Complete the surcharge request process
- Be approved before surcharge is enabled
- Not use Month-End Billing for Cyncly Payments
- Not use a Cash Discount program
The Cyncly Payments team reviews your business location and account setup before enabling surcharge.
Eligibility is based on your registered business location, not your customer's location.
When Does Surcharge Apply to a Payment
After surcharge is enabled, Cyncly Payments evaluates each payment separately.
Surcharge may apply to eligible card-not-present credit card payments processed through supported Cyncly Payments workflows.
These include:
- My Flooring Link payment links
- Eligible card-not-present payments in RFMS Mobile
- Manually entered or keyed card payments through RFMS Order Entry
A card-not-present payment does not use a physical payment terminal to read the customer's card. Manually entered and virtual-terminal payments are card-not-present and may qualify for surcharge.
When Does Surcharge Not Apply?
Surcharge does not apply to:
- Card-present payments completed through a physical payment terminal
- Debit cards, even when the card has a Visa or Mastercard logo
- Prepaid cards
- American Express cards
- ACH payments
- Check payments
- Other card types or transactions that do not meet surcharge eligibility requirements
Payments completed through a physical payment terminal are card-present and do not qualify for Cyncly Payments surcharge.
If a payment does not meet the eligibility requirements, no surcharge is expected.
How Cyncly Payments Calculates Surcharge
Cyncly Payments calculates surcharge on each eligible transaction amount, not the full quote or order balance.
For example, if a customer makes an eligible partial payment, surcharge is based only on the amount paid in that transaction. Any later eligible payment is a separate transaction with its own surcharge calculation.
For a credit card preauthorization, surcharge is based on the amount being authorized and is included in the total authorization. The authorization amount and surcharge are saved with the preauthorization but are not collected until the authorization is captured.
For example, if you authorize $612.12 and the surcharge is 3%, the surcharge is $18.36. The total authorization is $630.48.
The surcharge cannot exceed the lower of:
- Your eligible card-not-present processing rate
- 3% of the eligible transaction amount
You cannot choose a different surcharge rate or apply surcharge only to certain eligible credit cards. When surcharge is enabled, Cyncly Payments applies the surcharge rules consistently to eligible credit card payments.
Surcharge vs. Cash Discount
Surcharge and cash discount are different programs.
With surcharge, the customer sees the base price first. A surcharge is added when the customer pays with an eligible credit card.
With cash discount, the posted price includes the cost of card acceptance. Customers who use a qualifying alternative payment method receive a discount.
Your business cannot use surcharge and a cash discount program at the same time.
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